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Web Usability Illustrated: Breathing Easier With Your Usable e-Commerce Site (continued)

published in The Journal of Electronic Commerce, Volume 11, Number 4

Examples of Usability Design Goals and Issues
We illustrate various design issues across 5 categories of user engagement: motivation, visual work, intellectual work, memory work, and physical work. These examples help visualize the "invisible problems" that may be holding e-commerce back from its full potential (Schaffer, 1998).
Design to Enhance Motivation
1. Target user types Define the "persona" for each user type, then fashion a motivation plan Offer selected goals per persona...
  • Stimulation
  • Ego boosting
  • Knowledge
  • Enhanced social relations
  • Practical solutions
  • Rewards
  • Avoidance of problems
2. Consider adopting a theme to enhance user motivation and
understanding
Make theme intrinsic to the site offering

(Postcards fit the map and travel theme)

theme
    Avoid "paste-on" theme.

(What does a 1940's bus have to do with internet communication?)

theme
    Avoid mixed themes

(Newspaper "page" and "boulevard" collide.)

theme
3. Ensure downloads are short (5-10
secs or less) even under poor
internet conditions
When pressed for speed, avoid graphic images for text headers. Use font instead. fonts not graphics
    Ensure that any image map offers true value to user in exchange for the download time

(Be suspicious when told to click for "fun & adventure")

image maps
    Reduce the number of colors to reduce size of the gif file. Try artistic filters such as solarization, sepia, line draw, duo-tones
4. If international audience, avoid
offensive images
Avoid idioms, cultural stereotypes, and images of body parts

Get OKs from local authorities

idioms stereotypes body images body images
    Use internationally recognized "world images" world images world images
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